The present invention relates to a dental spacer and, more particularly, to an apparatus called adjustable dental spacer that may be secured to a tooth to maintain eruption space for a permanent tooth or teeth to erupt following the extraction of a baby tooth or teeth.
A dental extraction (also referred to as exodontia) is the removal of a tooth from the mouth. Currently, to maintain eruption space for one or more succedaneous (permanent) teeth when one or more deciduous (baby)teeth have to be extracted, an impression must be taken, a mold formed and sent to a dental lab for one or two weeks for an appliance fabrication. Therefore, multiple appointments must be scheduled within a short time frame to avoid or before adjacent teeth drift into the empty space where the dental extraction was done. Further, error may occur in the impression taking process causing the fabricated space maintainer to be ill-fitting, forcing further appointments and time wasted. Also, in the time required for appliance fabrication and appointing the patient, adjacent teeth may drift into the eruption space, in which case even a properly fabricated spacer will not fit.
As can be seen, there is a need for an apparatus like the fully-adjustable dental spacer that does not require off-site fabrication and allows immediate installation of the appliance and in situ adjustment the very day the dental extraction was performed to prevent drifting teeth.